DAILY BEAST / HAZLITT: …My favourite examples of sex worker advertising are from Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcano in 79 AD and then recovered over a series of digs in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pompeii was a tourist town, its economy fed by the actors and soldiers who charged in on their flush days, looking for wine and gambling and well-priced sex. One early excavator estimated that there was one brothel for every 286 people in the city…
In June, the Stephen Harper [Canadian] government tabled Bill C-36, a series of laws surrounding prostitution that would place the most stringent restrictions on sex work advertising in Canada’s history. The bill would criminalize the buyers of sex as well as people who work with sex workers (known as third parties), in place of the workers themselves. This means that “third party advertisers”—online and print media, mostly—will be breaking the law. (The most recent amendments to Bill C36 removed a provision that would prosecute sellers—sex workers—for advertising their own services when these ads could be seen by people under the age of 18. Third-party advertisers remain liable.)
Jean McDonald, Executive Director of Maggie’s, The Toronto Sex Worker’s Action Project, explains: “Prior to Bill C-36, sex workers had a variety of options for advertising. They could use a variety of third-party advertisers that link back to their personal websites, they could advertise via social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and they could also advertise in newspapers. Additionally, they could advertise their friends/duo partners on their own sites.” Now, McDonald adds, “many [workers] are worried that if they cannot advertise online or in newspapers that they will need to move to the streets to find clients.” One 2005 Canadian study found that 90 percent of street-based sex workers had been assaulted. Limiting sex workers’ ability to find their own clients could make them reliant on exploitative managers or pimps… (more)
